"It was unusual that the entire country seemed to observe temperatures that weren't only above average, but really considerably above average."

"The majority of observation stations we had observed temperatures more than 3° above normal and in fact there are quite a few sites that were 4° above normal which were essentially unprecedented - particularly for this time of year," he said.

New Zealand experienced intense heat over the 31 days with the highest temperature recorded as 37.6° in the Central Otago town, Clyde.

Other hot spots included Otago, the West Coast, Kāpiti Coast, and Taranaki, which all observed temperatures four degrees higher than normal.